


Wouldn't Hold My Breath

by SenkoWakimarin



Series: Not Quite Cheating [1]
Category: Cable (Comics), Marvel 616, Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Anal Sex, Attempted Cuckolding, Cheating, Coercion, M/M, Mild Cock & Ball Torture, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 13:17:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20359132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Frank knows that's not Nathan.





	Wouldn't Hold My Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/gifts).

> Happy birthday to the fantastic Inbox. You deserve so much more than this, but I hope you enjoy what there is. You've brought a lot of joy to me this year and you deserve the world.

The first clue that it's not really Nathan Summers on the bed is that Nathan Summers, for as long as Frank's known him, has taken a certain care in how he rifles through Frank's head, and the cold, dizzyingly thorough blast of stranger's thought that chases through Frank's head upon stepping into the hotel room doesn't feel right at all.

Frank's second clue is the lingerie. It likely says something about the nature of their relationship that the fancy arrangement of lace and sheer, white silk was the follow up point to the ephemeral psychic bullshit, but he knows Nathan well enough at this point that he knows if lingerie was going to be a thing, he'd either have gotten a text or they'd be in a box to be given to him as a gift.

He wastes a second or two examining the question of whether or not he wants to wear lingerie for Nathan while under that coming to terms with the basic fact that he still wants to fuck someone tonight and pointedly registering the fact that whoever that is on the bed hasn't moved to hurt him yet.

Nathan has a family, but Frank doesn't really know too much about his siblings. The way shit seems to go where family is concerned -- for both of them, honestly -- Frank figures the less involved he is with Nathan's family, the better. Still, he can't remember a twin ever being mentioned, and knows himself well enough to acknowledge that such a fact would have figured into his fantasies by now if he'd been told.

Could be a twin. Could be a real convincing inducer, or some kind of telepathic brain-fingering fuckery. Maybe a clone, that's exactly the kind of sci-fi novel bullshit that seems to stick to Nathan, hangs on him like a fucking cloak he can't seem to shake off. 

The real question is, what's Frank supposed to do about it? Whoever the fuck this is all spread out on the bed, watching him shut the door and lifting his arms to put himself on more of display than his initial sprawl allowed for, he's obviously confident enough in his ability to deal with Frank -- who's admittedly stupid enough to have shown up to the texted meet-spot without a gun, made complacent by too many good times without a single threat. He's got a knife in his boot and his fists, but the guy has already shown he's some kind of telepath. 

Frank supposes he could full blast project at him, Nathan always acts like his unfiltered, purposeful attempts to think at him is migraine-inducing. Otherwise, Frank's not really sure what he could reasonably do. 

Or if he needs to do anything at all. Guy's laying there preening, making himself pretty like all he's got on his mind is getting a good fuck, and really -- well, really it should be more worrying that someone knows enough about him and Nathan's little arrangement to find a way to get in on it, but if all that interloper wants to do is pretend to be Nathan and get Frank to sleep with them, that's far from the most sinister plot Frank's had to deal with. 

Not exactly super-villain territory.

That's a solid three minutes wasted hemming and hawing, and Frank's still not exactly sure what he's supposed to do with this. It almost feels rude to point out how quick he'd clocked the impostor as being decidedly not Nathan, but going along with the ruse is probably not right either, if only because he's not stupid enough to think whoever this is is doing it for any other reason than to try and hurt Nathan.

"You gonna tell me your name, or are you that into pretendin' to be Summers?"

Oh, if looks could kill, Frank thinks, amused more than anything. He gets a glare that really could stop a weaker man's heart, and something about the other man goes fuzzy and then resolves itself.

He still looks very much like Nathan, which should be more of a shocker, but Frank was already sort of leaning into the sci-fi bullshit clone theory. It just fits Cable's whole deal so well. Guy's got the same white hair, same dud eye, same scars, but he looks about five years younger, or maybe just like he takes a hell of a lot more time fussing over skin care than Nathan. And there's a certain something else, a hardness around the eyes and meanness to the set of his jaw, that keeps him from looking as... inviting as Nathan would, sprawled on the bed in lacy underwear like a present for Frank to open.

"Shocking. I expected you to be stupider." The words are bitter, guy sitting up and managing to look put out even with his legs (long, muscled, exactly like Nathan's) stretched out and his package on display with only some pretty lace to obscure it. 

Frank shrugs, biting back the impulse to apologize for not living up to a stranger's expectation of his stupidity. If he was honest with himself, he wasn't so sure he wasn't about to make a world-class stupid decision. Guy looked like Nathan, was built like Nathan, did the brain fuckery like Nathan. That meant he was probably at least as dangerous as Nathan, even without the metal arm.

It also, and Frank registers with some small dismay, meant that Frank still found himself seriously interested in pulling those panties to one side and doing everything he'd do if it really was Nathan sitting there.

That either shows on his face or the guy is fingering through his thoughts with a lighter touch than his first attempt, because Frank no more has the concept fully formed than the guy on the bed is sitting back against the pillows, smirking. It's not a nice look, Frank thinks, maybe a little stubbornly -- at least when Nathan smirks at him, all that insufferable smug is layered over a base coat of kindness. This guy just looks mean about it.

Unfortunately, and this is again realized with a bit of dismay, Frank kind of likes 'em mean.

"Here I thought you'd need all kinds of tricks to keep your dumb head in the game, lead you on thinking you were genuinely with Nathan Summers," He says, arms stretched out over his head to hook on the headboard, all that muscle on display. It's like seeing Nathan without a single mark on him, the lack of that metal seam zippering down his chest both disappointing and alluring. Frank doesn't think of himself as an easy lay, but maybe that's a part of him that needs reconsidering. "I really wasn't expecting you to be  _ looking  _ for a chance to be with the superior option."

Talks like a drama queen villain. Frank thinks in a different situation, the way this guy talks would be the sort of thing to make his fists curl -- fuck knows half the time when  _ Nathan  _ gets smart with him like that he still gets angry rather than twig to it being game. 

Something about this guy, the direct way he looks at him, the boldness of his display, of showing up pretending to be Nathan and then when called out on the act just laying back and looking for all the world like he still expects to get exactly what he wants. And, Frank thinks, he expects Frank to enjoy himself too; he's got that easy smug attitude of a guy who's never had a bad review, thinks he's a sex god either because no one's ever said otherwise or because he's arrogant enough to disregard any negativity. 

Frank doesn't know the guy from Adam, but he's willing to put money on the latter. 

"I didn't say I was lookin' for anything," Frank says mildly, but honestly, he's easing into the idea. Not that he wants... a different Nathan (meaner, harsher, more demanding, a fantasy of being held down and made small and usable), but because it seems like the easiest way of getting through this when he has no weapons and a limited amount of experience fighting  _ against  _ a telepath. 

Guy has the attitude of a man looking to rub someone's nose in the  _ drama  _ of Frank sleeping with him instead of Nathan, and Frank's inclined to think that in this particular situation, he's less likely to end up with his brains scrambled or telekinetically blasted out of his skull if he goes ahead and sates his admittedly massive curiosity. 

Something shifts, a sort of visual blur, and it's Nathan on the bed again, every detail in perfect render. It's freaky, jarring, even his stubble that perfect level of rugged that made Frank want to rub his cheek along that square jaw like a goddamn cat, and the only hint that it's not actually Nathan is the way the smirk doesn't change. Nathan's never looked that cold, Frank doesn't think. 

"You don't have to say it out loud, sweetheart," not-Nathan says, arching his back to put a pretty strain on that metal arm. "You know I can see all the things you want him to do. All those pretty ideas you're afraid he'll see and know how disgusting you really are."

That... well, it does a hell of a lot more for Frank than he wants to examine, an ugly sort of mixed desire, both to submit to the humiliation and to hurt the man at the source of it. His face goes hot and his hands tighten at his sides an he knows -- he's known for a minute now, but it's driven home by the heat curling in his stomach while mortification drips down his neck -- that he's going to do this. 

" _ I _ know you're not disgusting," Not-Nathan drawls, considering. "I know you're just human, and you  _ want _ . To be controlled, to not have to think. It's your nature."

Frank drops his gaze, the urge to argue that rising and dying almost immediately, killed by the acknowledgement that the guy's not exactly wrong. It's not human nature, maybe, but it sure as hell seems to be  _ Frank’s _ nature. Frank likes to give himself over to someone else, to Nathan, to someone he can trust to do the thinking. 

"Mmh, I  _ do  _ see the appeal to you now," the guy says, eyes half lidded, the left glowing cold and bright. "Here I thought the fun would be in the deceit, but watching you tie yourself into an agony over knowing and wanting it anyway, that's just delicious."

"Fuck you," Frank says, but he's not moving for the door. He's not moving to go anywhere.

The mask drops again, and the difference is at once stark and subtle; clearly not Nathan and yet so similar. "That's the plan. Take your clothes off."

He shouldn't, but he's going to. Frank's never been the kind to do this, sleep with someone else when he's supposed to be with another. He'd hazard to say it's not really  _ cheating  _ since he and Nathan aren't... they don't  _ date _ , they kill shithead criminals together and fuck afterwards, with some pretty spectacular sex between missions on occasion. This still feels underhanded, more underhanded the more he thinks about it, so Frank elects to hold to the fact that by any definition, he and Nathan are  _ not _ dating.

"Aw, you're going to break his heart, aren't you," Not-Nathan scolds, but the slice of his smile suggests he finds Frank's agonizing over all the angles of this situation to be just as good as, if not better than, the promise of sex. "Here I thought he just about had married you. His pretty little wife, wasn't that you?"

Frank's got a feeling, throwing his shirt on the ground, that however good the sex might be with this guy, he's going to spend a good deal of his time wanting to throttle him. Smug, manipulative bastard. 

Clothes off, boots set neatly together and the rest just left where it falls, Frank moves to the bed without being told, and the man, perfectly familiar and completely strange, relaxes against the pillows, pliant as Frank climbs over him, boxing him in with an arm on either side of him.

Whatever hope Frank had held that this might be easier up close, at least in the realm of getting his brain to stop lighting up with familiar lust at the idea of 'Nathan' looking at and speaking to him this way, dies immediately. Close, the man still looks almost exactly like Nathan, just... less stressed, less care worn, more like he's got the time and energy to waste on skin care. Because this guy doesn't actually look  _ younger _ , he just looks...

"Better," he says, lips curled in a smile that puts heat in Frank's chest. "You can say it. I look  _ better  _ than him."

"We gonna fuck or are you going to talk yourself off," Frank asks, and he half expects the guy to hurt him -- he's got the manners of a guy who doesn't like back talk -- but he gets a warm hand curled at the back of his neck instead, pulling him down. 

It's not like kissing Nathan, which is a relief but also bizarrely distressing. Nathan's kisses are hungry things, starved and rambling. This is pointed, controlling, calculated, and Frank's answering compliance is shameful. He parts his lips immediately at the press of tongue, closes his eyes and lets it happen. 

Strong fingers on his neck, on his ass, feeling him up, exactly the right shape and weight but wrong. Discordant pleasure and shame, want racing through Frank to barrel over the ramshackle defenses of loyalty and a certain... specific fondness for Nathan. Frank thinks it would maybe be easier if he  _ could  _ pretend it was Nathan under him, but knowing it's not and trying to pretend makes him feel somehow worse.

The hand on his ass moves, the kiss breaking. "The name you should be thinking is Stryfe," the mutant purrs, and bites at the sweet spot on Frank's neck. "Everything he does for you, I can do better. All the things he  _ won’t _ do, I will."

Frank knows -- he  _ knows  _ \-- that the knowledge of how to touch his body being used by this guy, this Stryfe, is stolen. It's plucked out of his head, traitor brain translating the possessive surety of the hands and the lips on him as good, as natural because they're  _ safe  _ hands, they're  _ Nathan’s  _ hands. 

There's no way this stranger should know the exact spot on his throat where even the roughest bite translates as brilliant pleasure. He shouldn't know how exactly to run his fingers up the knobs of Frank's spine, right between his shoulders and up his neck. These are things Nathan knows because Frank's let him see, has shown him. Stryfe knows because he can read Frank's brain like a book, but it's very difficult to sort that in the moment. 

In the moment, his body is telling him Nathan has him, and that's got his dick up and his head angled back to give Stryfe the room he needs to really maul that sweet spot.

Sometimes -- many times -- Frank's brain sort of locks up, the compliance he wants to give Nathan warring with over-active self preservation and the sense that the things he wants are the things that will get him killed faster. 

Here, like this, there's a confusing sort of noise in his head. Stress maybe, or maybe something the asshole telekinetic under him is doing to make it harder for him to use proximity as a chance to turn this into a fight after all. 

Certainly when hands relocate once again to his ass, spreading him and pulling him in, he doesn't fight it. His lips part with a weak sound, pleasure and surprise, as fingers press rough and dry at his hole, teasing. He has a brief but vivid image in his head of Nathan-Stryfe-either-or holding his face into the bedding and fucking him raw from behind, nothing but spit, fingerfucking his brain into taking the pain as pleasure until he's begging for it, gasping --

"Oh, you  _ are  _ his good little wife, aren't you," Stryfe purrs, digging his fingers into the meat of Frank's ass in a rough sort of massage. "Desperate to get fucked, so hungry for it you'll skip all the niceties so you can get to the  _ good  _ part. He's got you all trained up for him, hasn't he?"

Frank grits his teeth and says nothing, knowing his face is beet red and taking some small comfort than Stryfe can't see it while he's got his own face buried against Frank's neck. 

His breath catches when he feels strong, thick fingers on his balls, not clutching yet, just touching, exploring. His cock is hard, starting to drip, and just the threat of those fingers tightening, squeezing, the pain lighting up hot and huge through the core of him to gut him with pleasure makes him squeeze his eyes shut and breathe a curse. 

"Maybe next time, we'll see how good you look on my cock. I can fuck you how you need, just the way he won't, and send you back to him stuffed with my seed. Breed you for him, and you can tell him you finally found someone who can give you the things you need."

Stryfe's voice in his ear is bizarrely persuasive, painting a fantasy that's as shamefully appealing as it is impossibly stupid. The idea of going to Nathan with someone else's cum in him -- running down his leg, held in with a plug, left so deep it'll never come out -- and telling him he's... telling him someone else...

"Funny you think this'll happen more than once," Frank manages, voice dry and quieter than he means it to be. He sounds ragged, like he's parched, but there's a certain disdain in his tone that pleases him, contradicts the hazy curl of pleasure the words have had tightening in his stomach. 

"But it will, sweetheart," Stryfe laughs. He kisses Frank just under his jaw and lays back, big man all spread out. He looks so good, it's really kind of a sin that he's such an asshole. "Girls like you get what they really  _ need  _ and it doesn't matter who gave it to them. You'll come crawling back in a week or a month, shaking and desperate for someone to treat you right."

Fingers clamp on him, squeezing his nuts in a vice and sending white hot painpleasure like a bolt through his brain. Frank gasps and bucks down into the grip, reflexively trying to chase the pull to ease it off. Unlike when Nathan does it, there's no frisson of soothing understanding that the pain is just something else being given to him and that Nathan wouldn't take it too far even though he so easily could. There’s no  _ trust _ , leaving room for a yawning chasm of fearful, guilty greed. Like this it's raw, the knowledge that this man has all the power Nathan does and none of the caring. 

Only when Frank whimpers and hangs his head does Stryfe let up on him, a few solid seconds of agony that radiate through him as exciting pleasure. Stryfe leans up and  _ licks  _ him, jaw to lips, and kisses him so rough and deep it's suffocating.

"But I'm not going to knock you up tonight," he promises, hands kneading Frank's ass again. "You've got to earn that. Tonight you're going to show me you're worth it. You're going to fuck me, show me why anyone keeps a dumb, useless slut like you around. Make me cum and if you're good enough I'll tell you how to find me next time. When you realize there's better options for you."

Shuddering, pain still souring his stomach with a sort of reflex-nausea, Frank can't really do anything but pant and try to keep some semblance of sense in his head. His brain feels a little scrambled, but his dick is still heavy and hard and, dragged down to grind against Stryfe, he can feel that, at least, is mutual. Even through the lacy silk, Frank can tell Stryfe's cock is just as thick and hard and probably as picture perfect as Nathan's, and he suddenly very badly needs to get the stupid lingerie out of his way.

Part of him wants to fight it, stop being so complacent. He’s not got a lot of experience using a fuck as bait to get in close to a mark, but he’s practiced enough in violence to be able to think of a few things he could manage like this that are sure-things; places to drive his elbow down or shove in with the heel of his hand, too quick and too impulsive for even a mindreader to catch. If he was very, very lucky and he hit hard enough in just the right spot, there’s a chance he could incapacitate Stryfe and then maybe even kill him.

Frank’s never been that lucky of a man. 

The only weapon he’d brought was a knife and that was on the floor halfway across the room, and Frank figured it would be a goddamn miracle if he actually caught a telepath off guard. Nathan’s told him enough times how loud he always thinks.

He pushes the pointless urge to fight resolutely down, lets the hazy static noise in his head swallow doubt and uncertainty, and busies himself getting Stryfe's panties off. He doesn't doubt in the slightest that Stryfe could make this worlds easier with some of that telekinesis, but all he seems interested in using that for is feeling Frank up like he's a particularly enjoyable toy. 

Almost spitefully, once he manages to get the underwear off, he balls the fabric up and pitches it across the room. There’s a number of straps and tiny buckles and bits of fabric left hanging from the rest of the set, but Frank doesn’t really want to spend the time figuring out how to get all of that off. They’re strangers, this isn’t about tender touches and lingering looks.

With Nathan, he might have. Either one of them in it, he might have  _ enjoyed _ taking the time to unwrap or be unwrapped, but this isn’t that. 

Long, thick legs spread to either side of him and Stryfe arches his back all pretty, letting Frank get a look at everything. 

It’s freaky, really. If Nathan took the time to trim and shave his pubes, he’d look like this. Thick heavy cock, perfectly proportioned, neat foreskin -- perfect cock to suck, and Frank can’t help but wonder if he could make Stryfe squirm and curse the way he could Nathan. If it looks the same does it work the same? Stryfe’s hard, flushed and eager, and his hole looks wet and a little open already, like Stryfe already took care of himself, expecting them to go straight to it.

Compelled, Frank shifts his hold on Stryfe’s legs and pushes one finger into that slick, gleaming hole. Tight and hot and hungry, he’s pleased in a lizard-brained sort of way to get a soft, appreciative sound from the other man, quickly adding another finger now that he’s sure he’d seen correctly. It takes some kind of effort to keep himself slow, brain more than ready to turn off for a while.

Frank’s never had Nathan show up prepped and ready to just fuck. There’s always something else happening, lead in that never allowed for that kind of debauchery -- a job they’d just finished or some medical emergency or simply the knowledge that their schedules could at any moment collapse and a planned hook up would have to be postponed.

His face heats thinking about suggesting it sometime, thinking about Nathan pinning him after a fight and getting into his pants, finding him wet and ready, being able to have him right there without any bullshit --

Pain lances through his head, a hot flare of agony before Stryfe says dryly, “Very rude to think of someone else when you’ve got me right here, don’t you think?”

“Asshole,” he grumbles, pulling his fingers out and wiping them on the sheets. The pain in his head recedes to a dull throb, settling in behind his eyes like a hangover after a wild night. “You showed up banking on being able to pretend to  _ be _ him, so you really don’t get to bitch.”

“Here I thought you were going to be such a  _ good _ slut for me.”

Frank scowls as he lifts Stryfe by the hips. It’s work; the man’s not exactly light and he doesn’t do much to help out, but Frank manages. Maybe even enjoys showing off a little. The truth is, as pissed off as this guy gets him, he’s not even close to going soft, and the sight of all that lean muscle laid out under him does a lot in the way of making up for the attitude. 

At first, it’s like fucking Nathan, if Nathan were the goddamn laziest pillow princess in existence. The angle, the heat and tightness, the weight of the hand curled against the back of his neck. Physically it’s hitting all the right notes, but Nathan is rarely still and never lazy; Frank can always get him worked up until he’s just and feverish for it as Frank. This Stryfe guy seems content to just lay back and take it, purring the occasional pleased sound when Frank hits just right.

Then Frank gets his hand on Stryfe’s dick.

Immediately Stryfe arches up into Frank's touch, abs and thighs working as he puts real effort into chasing Frank's rhythm and spurring him on, faster, harder. There's not the same kind of open blast of sensation flooding back into Frank's brain straight from Stryfe's, the way there would be if he were doing this with Nathan, but there's enough in that static noise that's doing such a good job of keeping him from freaking out that Frank knows exactly what is wanted.

It's good. 

It's really good, and thinking that, acknowledging that, makes Frank feel ugly and dirty in a very specific way. His orgasm is pacing closer, a steady drag as he lets Stryfe set the pace, watches in interest as that smug, pleased expression cracks into something more honest. He still looks too cold and too... made up, too primped and prettied to be Nathan, but it's...

His mouth opens the same way, eyes fluttering shut, head held at an angle that does nothing but make Frank want to bite his neck. The hand on Frank's neck has tightened, and the other has moved from Frank's hip to his shoulder, scratching down the scarred length of Frank's back as Frank works. His hair is mussed against the pillow and the scars around his left eye crease as he gasps.

Not Nathan, but so close, and so gorgeous it would be criminal to complain. Complaining is actually pretty far from his mind, especially when Stryfe makes a low, eager sound, clawing at Frank's back. He's going to have a number of marks on him, his neck and now his back. A problem to worry about later.

A frustrated noise and Stryfe drops the hand from Frank's neck, moving it to try and force Frank to squeeze him tighter, stroke him off faster. Judging by the continuous little gasping 'ah's Frank's getting with each thrust now, and by the glazed over expression, Stryfe's close. 

Frank knocks that 'helpful' hand away and resumes his own pace, at his own grip. The scandalized, harassed look that crosses Stryfe's face at that is satisfying, and Frank lets himself enjoy it. He thinks about saying something smart, but really, that's not his forte. He says, "Not yet," instead, and gets a growling curse in a language he doesn't know in reply. 

Without his say so, his hand tightens and starts moving faster, wet with Stryfe's precum. The bleed of pleasure is getting louder, Frank basking with only a token nod to the shame he thinks he should feel in the satisfaction and want he feels radiating off Stryfe. A smattering of shock (he hadn't expected much) and delight (he loved a surprise when it was an enjoyable thing), all of it edged with shivering, tense pleasure, building and building. It's dragging Frank along too, his prowling orgasm now racing forward. 

He doesn't need a word to tell him what Stryfe wants; he's got nails digging into his skin and he's got legs locked so tight 'round his hips that it's a wonder he can keep thrusting. He's not going to be pulling out until Stryfe lets him, and Stryfe's not going to let him until he fills him up. 

Shoving in hard, Frank folds himself over Stryfe, kissing at his bared neck, biting and teasing as he works his hips in a frantic frenzy. Stryfe groans and moans prettily enough, and his voice isn't quite right for Nathan when he talks, but take the smarmy tone and the oh-so-educated background away, and Frank thinks it's really about the same.

Stryfe sounds like Nathan, exactly like him, when he's about to cum, and somehow knowing that is just the cherry on a very fucked up (and yet satisfying) sundae. 

Frank bites down on a soft bit of Stryfe's neck and jacks him off fast and steady, until Stryfe makes that same gasping gargle that Nathan makes when Frank's surprised him particularly nicely. His cum is hot and slick spilled all over Frank's hand, and the feel of it is plenty to get Frank the rest of the way there. 

He cums buried deep, satisfied in a sort of bone-deep way, and then lets himself go lax and heavy where he's laying over the other man. The legs holding him drop away after a minute; a minute more so too and then the clutching hands relax and he's free. 

It's not until he makes himself sit up and pull away that he starts feeling any of the usual guilt that comes with fucking. He wordlessly gets up and goes to the en suite to wash off in the sink, and brings back a wet rag to give Stryfe a similar opportunity. Once that’s passed off, he sets about getting his clothes on, still not talking. 

As Frank is pulling his boots on, he’s distracted by the sight of several items floating out of the hotel wardrobe, settling easily in Stryfe’s hand. A silver cigarette case, a weird looking lighter, a cigarette holder made of what looks like polished bone, maybe ivory. Frank’s inclined to imagine it’s ivory, because everything about Stryfe screams a sort of performative ‘bad-guy’ decadence. 

He waits until Stryfe’s fitted a cigarette -- even that looks expensive, and how the fuck does a cigarette look expensive? -- in the holder and is in the process of lighting it to ask if he’s aware this is a non-smoking room.

“Why,” the bastard asks, batting his eyelashes as he takes a drag, reclined against the pillows, smugger than ever in his afterglow. “Are you going to  _ punish _ me for it?”

Frank goes back to tying his shoes, unwilling to rise to the bait. 

Neither of them speak until Frank’s hand is on the door, and then Stryfe says, all false sugar and sweet, “I’ll be counting the minutes, Frank. Whenever you’re ready.”

_ Wouldn’t hold my breath on that _ , Frank thinks, yanking the door open and shutting it roughly behind him. He half expects some last minute attack, that telekinetic hold stopping him, something. All he gets is the sound of Stryfe laughing.

The laughter chases him out of the building and onto the street, echoing in his head with the easy surety of a man who knows he doesn’t have to hold his breath for a sure thing.


End file.
